Predatory gastropods of the superfamily Conoidea number over 12,000 living species. The evolutionary success of this lineage can be explained by the ability of conoideans to produce complex venoms for hunting, defense and competitive interactions. Whereas venoms of cone snails (family Conidae) have become increasingly well studied, the venoms of most other conoidean lineages remain largely uncharacterized. In the present study we present the venom gland transcriptomes of two species of the genus Clavus that belong to the family Drilliidae. Venom gland transcriptomes of two specimens of Clavus canalicularis, and two specimens of Cv. davidgilmouri were analyzed, leading to the identification of a total of 1,176 putative venom peptide toxins ("drillipeptides"). Based on the combined evidence of secretion signal sequence identity, entire precursor similarity search (BLAST), and the orthology inference, putative Clavus toxins were assigned to 158 different gene families. The majority of identified transcripts comprise signal, pro-, mature peptide, and post- regions, with a typically short (<50 amino acids) and cysteine-rich mature peptide region. Thus drillipeptides are structurally similar to conotoxins. However, convincing homology with known groups of Conus toxins was only detected for very few toxin families. Among these are Clavus counterparts of Conus venom insulins (drillinsulins), porins (drilliporins), highly diversified lectins (drillilectins). The short size of most drillipeptpides and structural similarity to conotoxins was unexpected, given that most related conoidean gastropod families (Terebridae and Turridae) possess longer mature peptide regions. Our findings indicate that, similar to conotoxins, drillipeptides may represent a valuable resource for future pharmacological exploration.

中文翻译：

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转录组学分析揭示了 Clavus 属未探索的捕食性腹足动物中毒液肽的非凡多样性。

Conoidea 超科的掠食性腹足动物数量超过 12,000 种。这个谱系的进化成功可以用conoideans产生复杂毒液用于狩猎、防御和竞争互动的能力来解释。尽管锥形蜗牛（圆锥形科）的毒液已经得到越来越多的研究，但大多数其他圆锥形血统的毒液在很大程度上仍然没有被表征。在本研究中，我们展示了属于钻科的两种 Clavus 物种的毒腺转录组。两个 Clavus canalicularis 标本和两个 Cv. 标本的毒腺转录组。对 davidgilmouri 进行了分析，最终鉴定出总共 1,176 种推定的毒液肽毒素（“drillipeptides”）。基于分泌信号序列同一性的综合证据，整个前体相似性搜索 (BLAST) 和直系学推断，假定的 Clavus 毒素被分配到 158 个不同的基因家族。大多数已鉴定的转录本包含信号区、前区、成熟肽区和后区，具有通常较短（<50 个氨基酸）和富含半胱氨酸的成熟肽区。因此，钻肽在结构上类似于芋螺毒素。然而，仅在极少数毒素家族中检测到与已知圆锥毒素组的令人信服的同源性。其中包括圆锥毒液胰岛素 (drillinsulins)、孔蛋白 (drillipins)、高度多样化的凝集素 (drillellectins) 的 Clavus 对应物。大多数钻肽的短尺寸和与芋螺毒素的结构相似性是出乎意料的，因为大多数相关的芋螺类腹足动物科（Terebridae和Turridae）具有较长的成熟肽区域。